Large Centralized Fired-Clay Cooking Stoves of Communal Households on Marajoara Mounds at the Mouth of the Amazon c. AD 400–1100

Summary

Rarely does the New World a thropological literature mention the existence of large centralized, multi-unit fired clay cooking structures of some prehistoric or recent indigenous Amazonian households. Yet these large, highly patterned features have been informative for archaeology from several points of view. Their existence and common presence as permanent structures built into the floors of prehistoric mound sites on Marajo Island have demonstrated that the mounds they occur in had sizeable, long-term domestic occupations as well as ceremonial remains. Until their discovery, the mounds were assumed to be purely ceremonial monuments. The strong magnetic signatures of stove groups allow them to be mapped by surface geophysical survey, giving potential settlement footprints and thus evidence of site populations and organization, as well as maps to aid excavations. Excavations at and around the structures revealed by geophysical survey revealed that they were set into housefloors, and the extent of the floors indicated that the houses must have been large, multifamily dwellings, a form still common in Amazonia at present. Further useful evidence from the excavations has been the identification of small fish and cultivated palm fruits as a staple foods and vegetation patterns with more forest cover than at present.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18729